FunctionalAmbivalent

Surely It Couldn't Be the Marilyn Monroe Thing

Everyone's talking about C-SPAN's ranking of the Presidents, so I might as well too.

My question: what, exactly, was it that Kennedy did to rank sixth? He's ahead, just to pick one, of Thomas Jefferson, who doubled the size of the country and dedicated his life, more or less, to identifying useful things and bringing them to the United States for exploitation. 

Kennedy, on the other hand, was in office for not even three years, and as far as I can tell he was batting just over .300 on big moments: Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam.

Now, granted, he handled the Cuban Missile Crisis nicely in that we didn't have a nuclear war, but to be perfectly honest I'm not sure missiles in Cuba were justification for nuclear war anyway. So: I call that about a wash, in that he reached the best outcome of a crisis I'm not exactly sure warranted being a crisis.

I'm thinking that maybe Kennedy's high position is a function of demographics, that the Presidential historians involved in this are of exactly the right age to have been inspired by Kennedy's New Generation energy and good looks, and that his star will fall in the next 20 years. On the other hand, maybe I'm missing something.

Little help, reader?

Trust Never Sleeps

Forrester Research notes that blogs are among the least trusted sources of information. Company blogs are the least trusted (16%), but just-regular-Joe blogs like this one are barely more trustworthy (18%).

Newspapers -- those vile mainstream media we blogger scorn so -- are trusted by 46%. That's still shockingly low, but then the most trusted source of all (email from a friend) is trusted only 77% of the time. To put that in perspective, that means, on the average, that each of us believes our friends are lying to us almost a quarter of the time.

Watching the Real-Time Focus Group

I watched last night's debate with my eyes glued to the CNN focus group lines, and here's what I conclude:

1. The focus group really likes it when the candidates string together lists. Get rolling enumerating a string of policies and the lines rise until the string ends.
2. It takes a lot more to drive the line down below neutral than it takes to drive it up. That surprises me because the overwhelming emotion people have about government right now is disgust. You'd think they'd be cranking the approval down as a way of crying "bullshit!"
3. There's a Reason why Ronald Reagan is revered. The electorate may want the government to come to their aid -- Reagan was a Roosevelt Democrat, remember -- but classic, personal-level conservatism is still the voter's default position. When McCain talked in broad terms about smaller government, the lines went to the top. When Obama talked about parental responsibility for education, the lines went to the top. Optimism made the lines go up; aggression made them go down. The focus group liked traits that could be described as "Reaganesque," and didn't like those that couldn't.
4. Men didn't mind McCain being crabby. At times, it seems like the the men's line rose when McCain got crotchety, as if reflecting a certain crotchetyness in the group. I guess we all have a little bit of Grampa Simpson in us.

Driver to Drink

A recent survey discovers that fans of woman's professional golf drink more wine than fans of any other sport.  Viewers of LPGA events drank an average of nearly $125 on wine last year. 

The fastest growth in wine consumption was among fans of the NFL, who spent 63 percent more on wine in 2006 than they did in 2005, running up a tab of $94.30.  A significant amount of that increase is attributable to Rex Grossman's irritating performance as quarterback of the Chicago Bears.  I know it drove me to drink.

The Crackpot Threshold

No matter what you poll, 20% of those expressing opinions believe something not supported by apparent reality.  The number goes slightly up or slightly down depending on the particulars of both the poll and the poll's subject matter, but on any given issue about one-in-five of those polled believe something that is just flat-out loony. 

I think of 20% as the Crackpot Threshold.  Really, really stupid things may infect the body politic, but with a few rare exceptions -- "John Kerry for President" comes to mind -- they seldom rise above 20% popularity.  A quick Googling is instructive.  For example,  here's an Anti Defamation League poll showing that 20% of the population of Belgium believes Jews have too much influence in world financial markets.  Here's another poll in which 20% of people believe it's possible to communicate with the dead. Look for even a few minutes and you'll discover that 20% of those polled  believe that the oceans are big enough that they'll never be polluted,  that clinical depression is "God's will," and that the legal profession does a fine job of policing its own ethical behavior.  Nutty beliefs all, firmly and sincerely held by 20% of us.

I bring this up for this reason: A new CBS News poll indicates that 21% of Americans believe that President Bush is doing a good job on Iraq.  That's one point above the Crackpot Threshold, which is well within the 3% margin for error.

To put that into perspective, on the defining issue of George W. Bush's Presidency, the President is now supported by the same percentage of people who believe that astrology is a science, that NASA faked the moon landings, and that the Constitution guarantees our right to own pets.

Survey Says!

President Bush insists his administration has not authorized torture but is nonetheless fighting against Senator John McCain's anti-torture amendment.  Curious behavior that means: It's time for another highly scientific and entirely fair Functional Ambivalent poll!

Results of this highly scientific poll will be analyzed in the future when I run out of other things to write about.

Yesterday's Technology Today

Functional Ambivalent now has the ability to conduct polls.  Here's the first one: